Is the Supermarket Sneakily Charging You More?
We probably shouldn’t be surprised to hear that in tough times, the supermarket chains we like to shop at are having it tough too, and along with food manufacturers they have a few sneaky ways of bumping up prices that they hope we won’t notice. To make sure you don’t spend too much extra on groceries, keep an eye out for some of these tricks:
- Less product, same price: Keep an eye on regular purchases to check if the manufacturers are reducing quantities - that might make another brand better value for you
- Increasing prices that you won’t notice: A common trick is for supermarkets to increase prices on the products you buy infrequently, because you probably won’t remember how much you paid last time. Pay attention!
- Refusing coupons: Some stores try to reject coupons that customers use, especially website coupons. Check their policy (for example, how many coupons you can use per day) and know the facts if they try to reject your coupons.
- Psyching you out: The less people are spending, the more supermarkets will focus on psychological tricks to get you to spend more. As an example, research shows customers tend to walk on the right as they move down the aisles but if you shop “counterclockwise” you’ll spend, on average, less than a typical right-hand-side walking shopper! The trick to beating this is simply to have a list before you go shopping and don’t buy anything on impulse.
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 at 5:53 am and is filed under Shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
